Hello everyone. I have this pesky problem on my hands: my wife is out-of town and her phone (G2) can't seem to connect to any network.
Here's the run-down: it definitely feels like a problem with people that unlocked their phones via unlock code (all the symptoms are the same: gray bars, no voice/data, can't search for operators) but we've never unlocked that phone that way. Phone was upgraded to 2.2.1 (first T-mo OTA), she ran stock for a while and, later I rooted with gfree (-f, S-OFF, CID unlock, SIM unlock, engineering bootloader) and flashed CM7 nightly (build 20? it was a while ago). She went to Israel and used local SIM there with no problem but, upon arrival, her phone will not work with T-mobile SIM, the original one that she had for 2-3 years now.
Does that sound familiar to anyone? Can anyone suggest simple troubleshooting that I can walk her through over the phone? She is not techy by any means, we have already tried reboot, airplane mode cycle, taking out and cleaning SIM.
Search does not quite find anything like our situation.... everything that I found is related to older problems, before gfree method.
If anyone knows technical way of correcting this - feel free to point me in the right direction as well, she'll be back in couple of days and I'll take a stab at it then.
Thank you in advance.
Related
Not sure if anyone else has had this problem but i randomly get mobile network drops once or twice a week. The phone works perfectly well but the mobile network just drops, you cannot scan for network at all. The only way i have found around it is to enable plane mode to drop all connections and then turn plane mode back off so the network starts up. This often takes between 5 - 10 mins for it to kick in.
Tried two roms but now back to stock but still happening.
Have you tried flashing the latest radio? They are listed in the dev section.
The recent OTA 1.21.405.2 update included a new radio I think. Did you put this on too?
Since then, I have also been having the network drop out. I am missing a lot of calls as a result. Prior to this update I had two months of problem-free operation on my stock 2.1 ROM.
From reading the google forums, this is a wide-spread issue. The light at the end of the tunnel seems to be that people updating to 2.2 froyo seem to see the problem stop. Two weeks to wait for us stock ROM boys according to the rumours then! Fingers crossed.
It's a bit embarrassing having this flashy toy when it struggles to be a phone at random intervals. At the weekend one of my less techy friends was waving his Nokia 6210i in my face saying, "At least I can make and recieve calls!". So I changed the language on his phone to Turkish when he left it lying about. The old ones are the best.
I am going to test the 1.21.405.2 theory by doing a factory reset later this week when I have time. Problem should persist if it is the new radio. Will post back with the results.
OK did a factory reset this morning. I left all my apps off, and did not set back up any google account business. I basically left it as a standard mobile phone.
Within 7 hours, guess what....yes it's lost the connection again. Strongly believe this is a radio problem. I'm too noob to know if I can flash the radio without rooting. Anyone?
I have since submitted my complaint with HTC CS. Will await their response, and post it here.
In the interim, turning airplane mode off and on again does regain the connection, and I have installed an app from the market place called "No Coverage Alert". It will now beep and buzz if I loose the connection so at least I will be aware every time it bombs out. Far from ideal but should do for now.
Watch this space.
Yes i have tried the two radios posted but i havent tried any international ones such as europe or asia. I still randomly get network drop and i need to turn radio off and back on again for it to pick up.
Maybe i should ask a chef if these drops are logged anywhere on the device so i can root in and look at the logs myself and diagnose what the network drop is on my phone.
Just to confirm, tried multiple radios and roms, i know exactly what i am doing all i would like is explaination of why it happens. It is not user error as i have tried with stock rom, no fancy apps etc to stop it from working or changing config.
its got something to do with the network radio libs that need a service restart. i am 100% sure if i rooted in and knew which service to restart it would work also
Erm.... this is a little embarrassing but I feel I need to own up to prevent misleading anyone. I have arranged with HTC customer support to send my Desire back for repair. They pick it up Monday.
I bought a cheap £10 phone to keep me going. It arrived this morning. After I had finished laughing at it, I put the SIM card in and powered up the phone.
"No SIM card instered" was the message it greeted me with. After numerous power-up and power downs, and some SIM card hoakee-coakee, it finally recognised the SIM card......then dropped the signal to Orange. EXACTLY what my HTC Desire did.
Doh.
I had tried the SIM card in another phone (my girlfriends Blackberry) when the problems first started and it had worked straight away. But the SIM card seems to be random in it's failures. Should have tested more rigorously.
Sorry guys but in my instance it seems I have simply a faulty SIM card. The first one I have ever had go wrong in 12 years, but there you go. I was too fast to blame Android/HTC.
A|ex, please try your SIM card in another handset. Do several power-ups to see if it goes wrong. Would explain why trying numerous radios/ROMs has not helped you.
Let me know?
I had the same issue. Talked all day and evening, then toyed around with the phone a little, flashed a new ROM, no connection. oO okay, that's weird. Tried 3 different ROMs, reset to factory settings. Went to Orange, the SIM was borked. Thankfully, getting a new one took all of 5 minutes and didn't cost me a dime.
Yep. Was the SIM card. The new one arrived from Orange this morning. Popped it in and it's working straight away. My 3G has even improved slightly I reckon.
Six hours of use and not one drop yet.
Thank god for that.
Hey everybody, I´ve been having more problems than anticipated with my Dinc2. Basically what happened was this:
I had a phone that I bought new, unlocked, and used on the GSM network this past summer while abroad. (Verizon). However, I had dropped it to the point where the audio jack ceased to work and thus had to take it back in November for a replacement under the Best Buy warranty.
Now, in November I jailbroke the phone again, and I still have the code that I used to do it. Or at least I think I did it successfully, because I never checked with a real SIM card. After (possibly) getting rid of the SIM lock, I rooted, got S-off and flashed the radio following the instructions here, which had been working great for the past few months in the US (CDMA). Now I´m running MIUI on Android 2.3.5 and the baseband version is 20.27W.30.0811U_1.09.01.0622 and a kernel of 2.6.35.14.
Now I´m abroad again, working in Spain for the next several months. My first issue occured when I arrived and tried to use an SD card. Guess what! It would appear there´s a sim card lock. It doesn´t recognize sim cards when they are inserted, nor does the unlock code I got back in November unlock the phone.
It gets better.
The phone doesn´t show an IMEI number, nor is there an IMEI number on the sticker on the back of the phone-just a Serial Number and an MEID. Also, since it was a replacement phone under warranty it was probably a refurb, and I don´t have any other packaging on which the IMEI could appear. As a result I have no friggin´ clue how to get the lock off and allow me to use the 3g network as before.
Should I try flashing the stock rom and radio, or just the stock RUU, and see if I can get the unlock code to work?
Or is it hopeless and in that case should I give up and buy a ****ty candy bar phone?
Thanks in advance!
authorama said:
Hey everybody, I´ve been having more problems than anticipated with my Dinc2. Basically what happened was this:
I had a phone that I bought new, unlocked, and used on the GSM network this past summer while abroad. (Verizon). However, I had dropped it to the point where the audio jack ceased to work and thus had to take it back in November for a replacement under the Best Buy warranty.
Now, in November I jailbroke the phone again, and I still have the code that I used to do it. Or at least I think I did it successfully, because I never checked with a real SIM card. After (possibly) getting rid of the SIM lock, I rooted, got S-off and flashed the radio following the instructions here, which had been working great for the past few months in the US (CDMA). Now I´m running MIUI on Android 2.3.5 and the baseband version is 20.27W.30.0811U_1.09.01.0622 and a kernel of 2.6.35.14.
Now I´m abroad again, working in Spain for the next several months. My first issue occured when I arrived and tried to use an SD card. Guess what! It would appear there´s a sim card lock. It doesn´t recognize sim cards when they are inserted, nor does the unlock code I got back in November unlock the phone.
It gets better.
The phone doesn´t show an IMEI number, nor is there an IMEI number on the sticker on the back of the phone-just a Serial Number and an MEID. Also, since it was a replacement phone under warranty it was probably a refurb, and I don´t have any other packaging on which the IMEI could appear. As a result I have no friggin´ clue how to get the lock off and allow me to use the 3g network as before.
Should I try flashing the stock rom and radio, or just the stock RUU, and see if I can get the unlock code to work?
Or is it hopeless and in that case should I give up and buy a ****ty candy bar phone?
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a similar scenario while I went to NZ. I thought I unlocked my phone prior to leaving, but didn't. I called verizon tech support and got a new code, plugged into the settings and then I was able to insert the prepaid SIM I bought. Here is the non 1-800 number for you to call (I had to get my brother-in-law to call them and get a non 1800 number because it is not listed on their website): 1-908-559-4899.
Try that and hopefully they can get you a new code to use. Good luck.
brymaster5000 said:
I had a similar scenario while I went to NZ. I thought I unlocked my phone prior to leaving, but didn't. I called verizon tech support and got a new code, plugged into the settings and then I was able to insert the prepaid SIM I bought. Here is the non 1-800 number for you to call (I had to get my brother-in-law to call them and get a non 1800 number because it is not listed on their website): 1-908-559-4899.
Try that and hopefully they can get you a new code to use. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just talked to Tech support today and got an unlock code... it´s not working however. I´ve put in a card, and it doesn´t show up. When I go to the SIM Lock under Options>Security, it says the code I enter is incorrect. Also, the phone shows no signal. Could it be that I just flashed a bad radio that supported CDMA and not GSM? Or is it something with MIUI? I was pretty certain that both the radio and the ROM were fine for GSM networks...
Re: [Q] No GSM? I thought I unlocked it!
authorama said:
I just talked to Tech support today and got an unlock code... it´s not working however. I´ve put in a card, and it doesn´t show up. When I go to the SIM Lock under Options>Security, it says the code I enter is incorrect. Also, the phone shows no signal. Could it be that I just flashed a bad radio that supported CDMA and not GSM? Or is it something with MIUI? I was pretty certain that both the radio and the ROM were fine for GSM networks...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try bonestock. That's what I ran.
Sent from my ViperDinc
brymaster5000 said:
Try bonestock. That's what I ran.
Sent from my ViperDinc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got that to work. Thank you! I later installed CM7 to try it out and surprisingly enough that didn´t work.
AOKP did for me-although they are both confirmed to be working with GSM? Anyway, I realized I never flashed gapps with the AOKP, so I tried to flash with the latest version (no coffee, late night) and ended up tweaking the install. Anyway, I re-flashed and I have to say that this setup (AOKP with Nova) is the slickest setup I´ve ever used! It´s been an intense couple days flashing ROM´s, reading about all the stuff that kept popping up, but then end result is so worth it!
Anyway, I´m off to go caress my telephone...oh yes.
authorama said:
I got that to work. Thank you! I later installed CM7 to try it out and surprisingly enough that didn´t work.
AOKP did for me-although they are both confirmed to be working with GSM? Anyway, I realized I never flashed gapps with the AOKP, so I tried to flash with the latest version (no coffee, late night) and ended up tweaking the install. Anyway, I re-flashed and I have to say that this setup (AOKP with Nova) is the slickest setup I´ve ever used! It´s been an intense couple days flashing ROM´s, reading about all the stuff that kept popping up, but then end result is so worth it!
Anyway, I´m off to go caress my telephone...oh yes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool. Glad to help.
Sent from my ADR6350 using xda app-developers app
Hi,
I was wondering if anybody could help me. I have an HTC Desire HD which was originally on the 3 UK network but, I got the unlock code as I am on Talk Mobile UK (The Carphone Warehouse company Operated by Vodaphone).
I have noticed that randomly the phone's signal will drop to zero and I must restart it in order to get the signal back. I've tried putting it into Aeroplane mode and then taking it out again to see if that helps but to no benefit. I've tried leaving it for about an hour to see if it kicks back in but again nothing. The phone is not rooted or anything like that and there are no updates on the HTC website so, I am confused why my phone does this. Is anybody able to shed some light on this issue and let me know how to fix it? I've put some pictures here:
htt ps://ww w.dropbox.com /sh/g4d6trog9ms0u4k/6bscDXu9qT
If that helps demostrate the radio working and no working. It also shows details about the Radio which I am using.
Any help would be most appreciated.
Many Thanks.
Did it function like this before it was unlocked? Maybe you need an updated radio?
Hi,
The phone was bought second hand and the day I got it, I unlocked it so never actually used it on 3 UK. I thought the radio might be the issue to but was hoping someone could confirm if thats how to rectify the issue.
To state clearly at first. The new phone in question was not rooted when I purchased it, but I did root it. So the phone is rooted but not unlocked. I thought I should also add that I'm in Atlantic Canada.
As usual, I always seem to have an issue that I look and can never seem to find the answer. This leaves me asking a question that I'm hoping there isn't already an answer to because I know people hate that.
So here goes. I have 2 SGH-989D phones. One I got new 18 months to 24 months ago with my re-negotiated Telus contract. I got the second one "barely used" a couple of months ago and I'm pretty sure it was a Bell pay as you go phone as this is what the person told me. He said all of the phones they get are always Bell. He would have no reason to not be truthful especially since I had a Telus and he knew I would need to unlock it I purchased it because my existing phone was acting up and also the screen was pretty severely cracked.
What I found odd is that when I put the Telus SIM card in the phone, I didn't get any message that the phone was locked. I was immediately able to dial a number and the call went through. I could also send and receive txt's. The phone also says Telus at the bottom of the screen. What is problematic however is that 4g won't work. When go into the new phone under network mode info this appears "GSM/WCDMA(Auto Mode)" But when I look at my original phones network mode I get "GSM/HSPA(Auto Mode)" So, I'm thinking this is probably quite obviously the reason that 4g isn't working and I have no data available unless I connect to wifi. This won't do.
So, where do I go from here? I'm thinking i need to unlock the phone in order to do something about this probably? Or is there something else I can do to pick up the HSPA instead of WCDMA? I'm so irritated by this. It feels like it should be a simple fix since both of these phones are SGH-989d's but maybe it's not. Lastly, and I don't think this makes much of a difference. My old phone is 4.0.3 version and my newer one is 4.1.2.
Thanks and I'm hoping someone knows what or if I can do anything or if I should just give up. I really hate giving up so I'm hoping it's not the latter of the two options.
Moved to Q and A, and, please do not bump within the same 24 hour period.
Xmariner said:
To state clearly at first. The new phone in question was not rooted when I purchased it, but I did root it. So the phone is rooted but not unlocked. I thought I should also add that I'm in Atlantic Canada.
As usual, I always seem to have an issue that I look and can never seem to find the answer. This leaves me asking a question that I'm hoping there isn't already an answer to because I know people hate that.
So here goes. I have 2 SGH-989D phones. One I got new 18 months to 24 months ago with my re-negotiated Telus contract. I got the second one "barely used" a couple of months ago and I'm pretty sure it was a Bell pay as you go phone as this is what the person told me. He said all of the phones they get are always Bell. He would have no reason to not be truthful especially since I had a Telus and he knew I would need to unlock it I purchased it because my existing phone was acting up and also the screen was pretty severely cracked.
What I found odd is that when I put the Telus SIM card in the phone, I didn't get any message that the phone was locked. I was immediately able to dial a number and the call went through. I could also send and receive txt's. The phone also says Telus at the bottom of the screen. What is problematic however is that 4g won't work. When go into the new phone under network mode info this appears "GSM/WCDMA(Auto Mode)" But when I look at my original phones network mode I get "GSM/HSPA(Auto Mode)" So, I'm thinking this is probably quite obviously the reason that 4g isn't working and I have no data available unless I connect to wifi. This won't do.
So, where do I go from here? I'm thinking i need to unlock the phone in order to do something about this probably? Or is there something else I can do to pick up the HSPA instead of WCDMA? I'm so irritated by this. It feels like it should be a simple fix since both of these phones are SGH-989d's but maybe it's not. Lastly, and I don't think this makes much of a difference. My old phone is 4.0.3 version and my newer one is 4.1.2.
Thanks and I'm hoping someone knows what or if I can do anything or if I should just give up. I really hate giving up so I'm hoping it's not the latter of the two options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The phone is unlocked or you wouldn't of been able to make calls etc with your sim.
My guess as to the problem is that your Bell phone is not a SGH-T989D, it's actually a SGH-i757M or GT-I9100M, they are called Samsung Galaxy S2's but there are a few models of the S2 out there. To verify your model either go to Settings > About phone and check Model number, or pull battery and look under it for the model number. To my knowledge, Bell has never sold the SGH-T989D model of the S2.
Almite said:
The phone is unlocked or you wouldn't of been able to make calls etc with your sim.
My guess as to the problem is that your Bell phone is not a SGH-T989D, it's actually a SGH-i757M or GT-I9100M, they are called Samsung Galaxy S2's but there are a few models of the S2 out there. To verify your model either go to Settings > About phone and check Model number, or pull battery and look under it for the model number. To my knowledge, Bell has never sold the SGH-T989D model of the S2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply Almite. Unfortunately the phone is the SGH-T989D.. I know it's a weird problem I've got here.
I used to play around with satellites back in the day. One of the things we used to do with the boxes was to jtag the box, erase the memory from the primary chip and then flash it with a different STB's info. This would enable us to do some wonderful things.
Rooting and then unlocking seems like a similar process however I just don't want to flash the phone with something that is going to brick it. I guess I'm going to need to do something. This phone is no good to me this way. If I brick it, I brick it. What I would like from someone in the community would be to direct me to the easiest process to flash my phone with a telus ROM.
I have read A LOT and there are many opinions out there, but I'm thinking that there is probably a consensus on what is the best and easiest way.
Update
I have successfully installed Jedi Mind Trick using TWRP as it appeared to be the best stable one out there. Used Darksides superwipe and then installed JMT. Still have issue of GSM/HSPA on original phone vs GSM/WCMDA on the phone that now has JMT installed on. I must say, I'm pretty impressed with how easily it installed and the ROM itself however sadly it did not help my conundrum.
I'm thinking that there is probably a developer here up for a challenge that could probably assist me with my problem. I really would like to be able to pick up 4g on this phone, or It's pretty much useless to me. What I need to figure out is how I can change this phone to recognize the HSPA network instead of the WCMDA network as GSM does not appear to be relative to data. Not with Telus anyway it would seem.
Maybe this isn't even possible because it's hard coded into the phone or something. Anyone have any ideas?
Last update unless anyone has any ideas
Xmariner said:
I have successfully installed Jedi Mind Trick using TWRP as it appeared to be the best stable one out there. Used Darksides superwipe and then installed JMT. Still have issue of GSM/HSPA on original phone vs GSM/WCMDA on the phone that now has JMT installed on. I must say, I'm pretty impressed with how easily it installed and the ROM itself however sadly it did not help my conundrum.
I'm thinking that there is probably a developer here up for a challenge that could probably assist me with my problem. I really would like to be able to pick up 4g on this phone, or It's pretty much useless to me. What I need to figure out is how I can change this phone to recognize the HSPA network instead of the WCMDA network as GSM does not appear to be relative to data. Not with Telus anyway it would seem.
Maybe this isn't even possible because it's hard coded into the phone or something. Anyone have any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Spent almost an hour on phone with Telus tech support. he explained that WCMDA should work fine as that and HSPA are essentially the same thing. Went through several settings changes and edits with him. In the end, he was stumped. The changes we made should have worked but did not. Therefore I supposed I have no choice but to give up. Guess I'll give the phone to my daughter as i don't want her to go online without wifi anyway.
Same issue
My wife recently cracked the screen on her Rugby Pro so I picked up a slightly used Koodo T989D and plugged in the SIM card. I had the same thing happen. Phone booted, made calls, all seemed well. The next day she realized she had no data connection. I rooted the phone, flashed Telus radio, tried different ROMs, even purchased the unlock code for it hoping for a fix. I can't seem to find anything that will allow this phone data connection of any type other than Wi-Fi. I would really appreciate any ideas or information that anyone has on this topic as I'm running out of ideas and buying another replacement isn't an option.
---------- Post added at 09:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:32 PM ----------
Xmariner said:
To state clearly at first. The new phone in question was not rooted when I purchased it, but I did root it. So the phone is rooted but not unlocked. I thought I should also add that I'm in Atlantic Canada.
As usual, I always seem to have an issue that I look and can never seem to find the answer. This leaves me asking a question that I'm hoping there isn't already an answer to because I know people hate that.
So here goes. I have 2 SGH-989D phones. One I got new 18 months to 24 months ago with my re-negotiated Telus contract. I got the second one "barely used" a couple of months ago and I'm pretty sure it was a Bell pay as you go phone as this is what the person told me. He said all of the phones they get are always Bell. He would have no reason to not be truthful especially since I had a Telus and he knew I would need to unlock it I purchased it because my existing phone was acting up and also the screen was pretty severely cracked.
What I found odd is that when I put the Telus SIM card in the phone, I didn't get any message that the phone was locked. I was immediately able to dial a number and the call went through. I could also send and receive txt's. The phone also says Telus at the bottom of the screen. What is problematic however is that 4g won't work. When go into the new phone under network mode info this appears "GSM/WCDMA(Auto Mode)" But when I look at my original phones network mode I get "GSM/HSPA(Auto Mode)" So, I'm thinking this is probably quite obviously the reason that 4g isn't working and I have no data available unless I connect to wifi. This won't do.
So, where do I go from here? I'm thinking i need to unlock the phone in order to do something about this probably? Or is there something else I can do to pick up the HSPA instead of WCDMA? I'm so irritated by this. It feels like it should be a simple fix since both of these phones are SGH-989d's but maybe it's not. Lastly, and I don't think this makes much of a difference. My old phone is 4.0.3 version and my newer one is 4.1.2.
Thanks and I'm hoping someone knows what or if I can do anything or if I should just give up. I really hate giving up so I'm hoping it's not the latter of the two options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I hunted and finally answered this question we both had. Go to Settings:Wireless and Networks:Mobile Networks:Access Point Names.
Since my phone was a Koodo phone it lists Koodo SP. Click the menu button then New APN. Name it whatever you want. I called it Telus. APN is sp.telus.com. Scroll down to MMSC and type http: // aliasredirect. net/proxy/mmsc (without the spaces. They won't let me post a 'link'). Under MMSC proxy type 74.49.0.18. MMS port is 80. MCC is 302. MNC is 220. APN type should be Internet + mms. Click the menu button and save. Click the circle behind your newly created APN and wait. In under 30 seconds I had 4G connection.
Hope this helps you.
So, I have an LG G7 from a couple of years ago that came with G710ULM11g (BPT). And unless the phone manufacturer itself disables unlocking the bootloader, 99% of the phones my carrier offers are unlocked versions (ive been able to easily root every phone from them for years except for Samsung phones recently, they suck.) But After getting a different phone, I rooted the G7 and flashed it with G710ULM21f (BPT) stock rom. No problems. But i just recently accidentally smashed the LCD screen on my new phone and its unusable at the moment and I cant afford to fix/replace the screen currently. So, I took the SIM out of that phone and put it into the LG G7 and noticed that the antenna bars only displays "1x" next to it. So, I went on a deep dive researching spree the past few weeks to see how I could get the phone receiving 4g/VoLTE like it used to. After hours and hours of research and reading and re-reading xda threads, reddits, posts on other android forums, blogs, and watching countless videos, I still haven't figured it out. I tried changing the APN settings, changing LTE Field test settings in the service menu, adding the enabler file in root, and exploring the root files with ADB to no avail. I managed to screw the phone up multiple times to where I couldn't even get 1x though but always figured out how to get it back.
I also came across articles, threads and other posts on the internet from people claiming that once the G7 is rooted that it will no longer be 4g/VoLTE capable ever again. And then I came across 2 or 3 threads claiming that if you crossflash with the correct firmware that you can get 4g/VoLTE back on the phone. And I'm not sure which one to believe. BUT if the crossflashing threads are true then I would like to try it. My problem is that not only have I never crossflashed firmware on any of my phones before, and I have no clue which firmware to crossflash with which but I seriously can't understand some of the steps in the threads that I read. I know HOW to follow instructions and have flashed custom roms on past phones but some of the steps I'm confused on since they're not using terms that I'm typically used into flashing tutorials and I really don't want this phone to get hard bricked. So, if anyone could help me out with which firmware I need to crossflash according to my region while also explaining the steps a little better, I'd appreciate it.
I also came across info stating that some carriers will allow someone's sim to be put into another unlocked phone and it will work fine. While some other carriers activate their SIMs to be phone/imei specific. Now, I'm not exactly sure which of those my carrier does but I'm leaning towards the idea that they're SIMs can be put into other unlocked phones due to the fact that my G7 is technically working with the SIM as in I still get 1x and I can still send and receive calls and texts but I just can't receive 4g/VoLTE. So, I'm thinking that if its real, the crossflashing idea would be the way to go.
I feel like I'm forgetting to mention something else so if I remember it, I'll be coming back to edit/add to this post. But any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!